Abstract
The relative effectiveness of employed versus unemployed searchis an important issue addressed in the empirical job search literature; the answer to this question is critical to tlie validity of theory of search unemployment. In this paper we apply descriptiveanalysis and probit analysis to examine the relative effectivenessof employed and unemployed search for 1984/85 and 1991 collegegraduated youth in Taiwan. For 1984/85 college graduates, results from both the descriptive analysis and probit analysis suggestthat unemployed job seekers are more effective in search by gaining more new employment. The differences in search methods usedbetween employed and unemployed searcliers may explain some ofthese outcomes. For 1991 college greduates, the descriptive analysis result indicates a higher job-finding rate for employed searcliers.However the probit esimation results imply that the probability ofgaining new employment is higher for unemployed searchers whenthe search choice variables are included.